Advantages of Having a Fully-Automated Home: Remote Security, Energy, and Home Management

How many times have you left your home, only to come running through the front door to check if the alarm has been set or if all of your appliances have been unplugged or turned off? It's a waste of time and it's a huge hassle. Unfortunately, it's part of being human to be forgetful.

One solution? You can fully automate your home. It seems like a drastic step to take care of a seemingly small problem, but the risks involved if these do happen on a regular basis translates to pretty huge things. Fires can break out as a result of an unplugged iron; burglars can break in undetected if you forget to set your security system; and don't even get me started on what could happen if you forget to activate your smoke or CO alarm.

There are a number of providers who currently offer hassle-free installations of these types of systems in your home, like Vivint, which used to be known as APX.

Home Automation

Having a fully-automated home will afford you new conveniences that you probably didn't even know were possible. Turning your lights off remotely? Checking to see if the alarms are running? Locking all of the doors in your house? All possible.

A home automation system allows control of most electrical devices in the house and even provides control for the facilitation of household activities, like feeding your pet, changing the ambience, watering your yard or garden, and controling home entertainment systems.

Energy Management

At the outset, having a home automation system installed might seem like a lot of money. Most providers require activation fees and charge a monthly monitoring fee after that. The activation fees range from up to a couple hundred dollars, but sometimes they run promotions to waive this fee. The monthly monitoring fee depends on the type of service you opt for, but they usually run below a hundred dollars.

Some providers offer an energy management package that's tailored to specifically help you manage electricity consumption in your home. You can control most appliances, your thermostat, and even your lights remotely so they don't keep running while you're away.

Security System

Most traditional security systems are connected or installed with a lot of wires involved. This time, you can skip the wires and opt to have security features included in your home automation package. This lets you set up your alarms and arm them, even if you're away from home.

Breaking apart from the usual burglar detection systems, there's also other alarms geared for detecting other types of risks, with alarms for CO detection and smoke detection.

Remote Security and Assurance

The best part of fully automating your home is having full control of everything--even when you're far away from your home. This means you can tweak settings and turn things on and off with your smartphone or computer. An example of this is the mobile app version of the Vivint control panel.